Virtual Event: Leveraging automation technologies to work smarter

It is estimated that over 35% of irreproducibility has been attributed to manual errors in the performance of experiments and data reporting, which results in unnecessary costs totaling around $28 billion in order to repeat experimental work (The Economics of Reproducibility in Preclinical Research. PLOS Biology 13(6): e1002165).

Automation looks to increase efficiency, speed, and reproducibility and lower costs by replacing manual methods. The majority of results generated with manual manipulation are still captured via paper and susceptible to error. If you have ever tried to repeat a method from a colleague’s laboratory notebook, you know how challenging this can be and this is compounded if colleagues cannot be physically there to go through it with you.

This virtual event brings you three webinars from experts in the field of automation who will discuss how you can work smarter by:

• Using automated pipetting to increase accuracy, consistency and efficiency
• Leveraging automated sample preparation, liquid handling and cloud-native software to accelerate your development and derisk transferring methods between operators on a global scale
• Understanding compliance and sample traceability as part of the automated workflow

Session 1 - 15:00 BST / 16:00 CEST / 10:00 EDT / 07:00 PDT

Improving efficiency and reproducibility by automating common LC-MS sample preparation protocols

• Speakers: Melvin Blaze and Kathryn Brennan, Waters Corporation

Session 2 - 16:00 BST / 17:00 CEST / 11:00 EDT / 08:00 PDT

Automating endotoxin testing using the Andrew+ Pipetting Robot

• Speaker: Dr. Robert D’Ordine, Senior Scientist, Associates of Cape Cod

Session 3 - 17:00 BST / 18:00 CEST / 12:00 EDT / 09:00 PDT

Follow that sample: The importance of compliance and traceability in the automated laboratory

• Speakers: Heather Longden and Guillaume Mignard, Waters Corporation

Who Should Attend?

The content of this event is ideal for those interested in learning more about how to increase their laboratory efficiency with simple-to-use and easy-to-implement affordable automation solutions. In addition, any pharmaceutical or CRO laboratory that transfers methods often and is looking to de-risk and improve success.

Presenter: Dr. Melvin Blaze (Principal Scientist, Waters Corporation)

Dr. Melvin Blaze (Ph.D. in chemistry, University of Illinois at Chicago) is currently working for Waters Corporation as a principal scientist. He is involved in the research and development of solid-phase extraction (SPE) and automated sample preparation. He has over 10 years of combined experience in food, beverage and pharmaceutical research, specializing in small molecule analysis ranging from new chemical entities and antibiotics to endogenous metabolites in biological, food, beverage and pharmaceutical matrices using state-of-the-art separation and mass spectrometry techniques.

Presenter: Kathryn Brennan (Applications Scientist, Waters Corporation)

Kathryn Brennan (B.S. in environmental science, UMass Amherst) joined Waters Corporation as an applications scientist in 2018. Prior to joining Waters, she spent two years working for an environmental CRO conducting pesticide analysis studies. Kathryn’s focus since joining Waters Corporation has been leveraging the use of Waters instrumentation, columns, and consumables for method development, application support, and product development. With a strong emphasis on sample preparation, her work includes automating sample preparation workflows using Waters automated platforms, as well as Hamilton robotics, for liquid handling and solid-phase extraction processes with the intention of providing more efficient and robust LC-MS applications.

Presenter: Dr. Robert D’Ordine (Senior Research Scientist, Associates of Cape Cod, Inc. )

Robert is a senior research scientist in research and development at Associates of Cape Cod, Inc. Robert is an author on 20 peer-reviewed publications and patents and has over 20 years of experience in biotechnology, working in areas ranging from genomics and protein characterization to biochemistry and diagnostics. Robert has 10 years of experience with LAL-based assays and specializes in glucan detection methods. In his current role, Robert interfaces with quality control, product development, clinical development and technical services engaging in automated assay adaptation, methods development, design and analysis of experiments, and technical problem solving.

Presenter: Heather Longden (Senior Marketing Manager, Pharmaceutical Intelligence, Waters Corporation)

After a number of years in training, supporting and selling Waters Software, Heather's current role is as a specialist in compliance to e-record regulations, acting as a resource to the global informatics community at Waters and the users of all Waters informatics products.

Heather’s work involves helping design the compliance into Waters informatics products and services, attending and presenting at specialist conferences, keeping up to date on the latest interpretations and amendments to the regulations and disseminating this information to the Waters field and corporate organizations, as well as Waters customers.Heather is active in the ISPE GAMP Community of Practice and the ISPE New England Chapter where she is called on as an expert in data integrity, specifically around the chromatographic analysis process

Presenter: Guillaume Mignard (OneLab Product Designer and Owner, Andrew Alliance, A Waters Company)

Guillaume started his career as user experience and interface designer for business software at the time it was a trend only for web marketing website. After joining Andrew Alliance Software team in 2017, he became product designer and product owner of OneLab, a cloud-native software platform for making lab automation accessible to every scientist. He is responsible of the strategic direction of OneLab, the design and implementation of every features as well as the diffusion of what it is released to stakeholders and customers.